


Peter's Pockets

by FictionalWorldsAreExquisite



Series: About Peter [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Gen, Humor, Peter empties his pockets and bag. i don't know what else to tell you, Tony is done. Happy is done. Peter is not., except that the stuff found there is...odd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-18 06:47:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21540115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FictionalWorldsAreExquisite/pseuds/FictionalWorldsAreExquisite
Summary: For security reasons, Peter has to empty his pockets and bag before going up to the lab with Tony. Happy has no idea what he just asked for, Tony knows exactly what's about to happen.
Relationships: Happy Hogan & Peter Parker, Happy Hogan & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: About Peter [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1553290
Comments: 89
Kudos: 772





	Peter's Pockets

**Author's Note:**

> i need you to understand that no matter how ridiculous this seems, this rlly just was me as a kid. i stopped when i was a little younger than Peter but like, it was a whole ass thing. this story is not meant to be taken seriously of course, but like, it's not as ridiculous as you might think.
> 
> i've been writing some shorter things lately after my last story and i'm not rlly that happy with them but i think that's just cause i quite liked my last fic and nothing rlly lives up anymore so i was like why not just post something dumb anyway. that's not to say it's BAD. just, weird. you get to decide if it's bad or not. I gave Peter this weird character trait in one chapter of my last story so I decided to really just expand it.
> 
> I have a couple other things I might edit and chuck up soon. Who knows.

Happy had just asked Peter to empty his pockets and schoolbag and identify all the objects he had on him in a side room for the sake of security. There’d been a recent attempt on Tony’s life and his security had been upped, but right now, he wished they’d succeeded.

Tony knew the reasoning behind it, if anyone had figured out Peter’s connection to him, they could’ve slipped something onto his person to cause harm to both of them. It was just a precaution and it was theoretically good, especially because he didn’t want Peter to get caught up in this mess. But God, Happy did not know what he’d just asked for. Also, Peter had his spidey tingle thing, surely he would’ve noticed if he had something bad planted on him?

In any case, now Peter had to empty everything out to display what he had on him but he also had to identify the objects to make sure there was nothing he didn’t recognise there. It made sense. It really did, Tony just wished he’d brought some work down or maybe a bed for this.

They started with Peter’s pockets. First came the phone out of his jacket pocket because he’d been holding it in there and Peter methodically just said, ‘my phone,” as he put it on the desk.

Then came a handkerchief out of the same pocket. Not that weird, it was getting colder and the chilly mornings tended to make you sniffle a bit. Peter identified it, “my handkerchief.”

Maybe Tony had overreacted. Yeah, it’d take a bit to get through his bag mostly but if Peter kept up the pace, it shouldn’t be too bad.

Peter then pulled a wallet out of the same pocket and identified it quickly. Little weird that he didn’t spread out his stuff through all his pockets but hey, whatever worked. Next, out came some keys for his apartment and he identified the key chains attached too, “this one is a chicken that makes an egg come out when you squeeze it. Wait, here.” Peter squeezed it to demonstrate that’s all that was inside. Tony questioned the kid’s taste in key chains. “This one was a present from Ned from when he went to Canada, it’s really old now.” It was a maple leaf, probably from a tourist shop. “This one was a present from MJ, it’s a knife hidden in a feather.” 

Peter held up his hands, “but it’s like the size of a toothpick, I swear. It barely even cuts. I think it was more of her asserting her dominance at the time.” Tony didn’t want to know. “Then this one is a spider cause...uh. Well. It’s a spider.” Nerd.

Maybe this was going to be as bad as he thought. Thorough was good but if he knew the kid, there was a lot more where that came from. Plus, they’d only gotten through one jacket pocket so far.

Peter patted his pocket and started to turn it inside out, “so that’s all there-”

Two marbles fell out. Tony and Happy stared at them then at each other.

“Oh! I forgot I had those. But they’re definitely mine. Or, well...I found them and no one was around so I took them home and cleaned them so I maybe stole them but I can identify them as something that is kind of mine anyway?”

“How long ago did you find them?” Happy asked. Did he really think they were dealing with marble bombs or something?

“Huh? Oh. Uh. A month maybe?”

Happy went from being vaguely on alert that something may have been planted to absolutely baffled. “You kept those in there for a month? Don’t you wash your clothes?”

“Oh, I do! But I’ve only worn this jacket once before now ‘cause it’s a warmer jacket and there was that one really cold day but then it got warmer and it seemed dumb to wash it after one use, you know? Especially since it’s a jacket. So I put it to the side but then today was cold! So I wore it and I guess they were still there! I completely forgot about them.”

Tony sighed. “Got it, kid, anything else in your other jacket pocket?”

Peter pulled out a mini (like, actually miniature, as in slightly bigger than your thumbnail) tool kit out of the other pocket. “Okay, so this has a tiny screwdriver, a tiny hammer and a flat-head screwdriver. I got it from a Christmas cracker and this,” he pulled out a small measuring tape, “was from another cracker.”

Tony stared, “kid. Christmas was like, almost an entire year ago. You can’t tell me you didn’t wash that jacket for a year.”

“Oh no, I did! But then on that cold day, I was like wow, class is going to be so boring today because the lessons were going to be just kind of fillers and I thought to myself, I wonder if I could dismantle my desk. But you know, I couldn’t exactly walk in there with a full toolkit and go hey! Just here to damage school property! So I figured I’d mess around with these and see what I could do, which is why I chucked them in my pocket.”

“...did you?” Sue him, he was curious now.

“What?”

“Dismantle your desk?”

Happy cleared his throat, “we still have a lot to get through.”

Tony waved him off, “no, I’m curious now. Tell me.”

Peter looked sheepish, “well, that detention I had back then wasn’t actually for being late to class too often. It, uh, may have had something to do with destroying school property.”

Tony pinched the bridge of his nose, “there’s no way those worked.” They probably would’ve snapped if anything, what the hell did Peter do?

“Oh, they didn’t, but,” Peter pulled a small screwdriver set out of his sweatpants pocket, “I also brought these as plan B because I figured the small ones probably wouldn’t work, I just wanted to test it anyway.”

Tony and Happy stared.

“Didn’t wash those sweatpants since then either?” Happy asked, sounding like he didn’t really want to know.

“Oh no, I did! I just put these in here this morning.”

Tony groaned, “kid. Don’t tell me you did more damage to school property.”

“I didn’t! I can assure you of that much. No more detentions.”

“Okay...then why do you have them?”

“So the thing is, it wasn’t school property this time.”

“Oh, great, so now you’ve done damage to public property.” Fantastic. What structure was about to collapse somewhere in the city?

“No! It was in a dumpster. Or, well, it was some weird thrown out contraption. I wanted to figure out what it was so I got up early and stopped there on my way to school. I think whoever made it just screwed things together at random but at least I have my answers now.”

“Gross.” Tony looked at Peter’s hands. He sure hoped they’d been cleaned.

“Alright, let’s keep this moving.” Happy clearly also thought it was gross even if he was too professional to say it out loud, his face said it all.

Peter patted his jacket pocket, “oh, right! I don’t have much else here.” He pulled out several scrunchies (refusing to explain), at least five rubber bands, a handful of paper clips and a chocolate bar, identifying each as he went. He wasn’t giving reasons anymore but Tony wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it. 

“Oh, can I eat this now, Mr. Happy?” Peter held up the chocolate bar.

Happy waved him ahead, “as long as you keep going.”

Peter nodded and started unwrapping it before digging into the sweatpants pocket that the screwdrivers set had come out of. “So I have some pumice.”

“What the hell? Where did you find volcanic rock in New York?” Was that even found in the state?

“Oh. It was on the street actually, although I’m not sure how it got there. I wanted to examine it more under a microscope in the lab so I picked it up.” Peter looked down at his hands, “but it’s awfully chalky. Not sure if I’m a fan.”

And on it went, plasters in case he came across someone who needed one, three sets of headphones (one was broken but Peter was planning on pulling it apart, one only worked in one ear and the other was perfectly functional), at least five bobby pins (he insisted they were for his hair but Tony suspected lockpicking), two screws (Peter wasn’t sure if they were from the school desk or the dumpster contraption but he was sure they were his), a pen, a candy wrapper, cat fur from the neighbour’s cat (Peter admitted he wasn’t sure how that got there. But he did brush that cat earlier that day for his neighbour so it wasn’t that unusual), a few star stickers (“I give myself one if I do well. Self-validation and all that”) and finally a tiny notebook. 

Peter pulled his pockets inside out and this time nothing fell out except for a small plastic frog which made Peter stop what he was doing and show Happy and Tony how it jumped. 

And okay, it was kind of insane to see how far across the room it sprang when you pushed down on the back tab but they still had Peter’s bag to get through so they had to keep moving.

“Alright, Peter, empty your bag next and identify it all. Same thing. Let’s go.” Happy was looking at his watch like he had severely underestimated how much time this would take. 

Peter unzipped his bag and started pulling out books first of all, “so there’s my English book, my physics, chemistry, biology and calculus book.” Peter flipped through each of them making sure nothing else was caught inside. The English book was alarmingly empty of notes, several of the science books had notes that definitely had nothing to do with what they were learning in class and the maths book also had some bizarre-looking calculations, from what Tony managed to see. “This is my calculus workbook and a few handouts for chemistry.” The calculus workbook looked full even though the school year had barely started.

“Then I have this book here that MJ gave me today that’s about unsolved murders, I think? I haven’t really started reading it yet.”

Happy squinted at it, “is that a normal sort of thing for her to give you?”

“Oh yeah, totally normal. Nothing out of the ordinary there.”

Tony decided the kid had made some interesting friend choices.

“Uh. That’s all the books. I’ve got my lunchbox,” Peter pulled out a black container with Star Wars characters on the lid, “but it’s empty.” He opened it to show them then slammed it shut.

Happy immediately went into alert mode, “what’s in it?”

Tony, however, didn’t recognise any alarm on the kid’s face so it was clearly something else. “Yeah, Peter, what is it?”

Peter turned red, “uh. Teeth.”

“What?!” Tony and Happy said in unison.

“It’s just that May kept a couple of my baby teeth and I brought them in to show Ned because I thought it was weird but the bag they were originally in broke so I put them in there for safekeeping. So they’re mine! Don’t worry. Not anyone else’s.”

“That literally does not make this a single bit better,” Tony argued.

Peter shrugged, “do I still have to show you them?”

Happy nodded, “unfortunately,” and he really did sound like it was unfortunate.

Peter opened the lunch box again and held it out towards Happy and sounded slightly too proud when he said, “I knocked both my front teeth out at once! Which is what she kept, I guess.”

Tony squinted at them. Weird. “How’d you knock them out anyway?”

“Oh, I was rocking back on a chair when we were visiting one of May’s friends and there was concrete behind it and I fell and well...those teeth were gone.”

“And yet you still rock on chairs.”

“I have a spider-sense now! No way I’ll fall.”

It seemed more likely that Peter weighed up the pros and cons of swinging on a chair and decided it was worth it but Tony left it be. 

Peter shut the lunch box. “Anyway, I have lots of pens and pencils and stuff but no pencil case so, they’re kind of scattered.” Peter pulled out a pen that had a parrot on top, a pen with a puffy multi-coloured ball on top and a pen with something weird-looking on top that Tony couldn’t identify but all was revealed when Peter shook it and the pen made noise, like, obnoxious noise. “I’m not allowed to use this in class anymore but I keep it on me just in case one of my teachers changes their mind at any point.” Tony wasn’t surprised he’d been banned from it, he’d go mad if he had to listen to someone writing with that.

Out came some thankfully normal-looking highlighters, a couple more pens that had nothing weird about them and a collection of normal pencils, Peter calling out the size of each as he went. Then he pulled out a pencil in a tube and lit up, “wait, you guys have to smell this!”

At this point, Tony was pretty sure Happy was convinced Peter had nothing bad on him but nevertheless Happy asked, “is it poisonous gas of some kind?”

“No! Of course not. It just smells really good. I got it as a prize once and I’ve never smelt anything better.”

Tony grabbed it and pulled the top half off, sniffing lightly. Oh shit, it did smell really nice. “Kid’s not lying, this is some good stuff.”

Happy sighed, probably thinking about how he didn’t even know why he bothered trying to protect Tony when Tony just went for it. Whatever, the smell was worth it.

Peter then pulled out an eraser that was about the size of his hand (fingertips to palm), “this is my eraser for big mistakes! Also just cause it’s harder to lose when it’s so big.”

And on it went, a drink bottle, his phone charger alongside a power bank, a few screwed up pieces of papers, his Spider-Man suit, post-it notes, a pair of scissors, a broken ruler and a scarf. It was...weirdly normal to be honest. Sure, there were a couple of weird things, but it was a pretty average high schoolers bag if you asked Tony. 

Until Peter shut the main pocket and started opening some of the smaller ones. “This is some bubble mixture I keep in case I feel sad and want to be cheered up or in case I want to test my teacher’s boundaries and blow them in class. Flash normally calls me out though which sucks.” The kid was honestly a menace.

Peter fished out a square metal tin, “that’s just the case I keep my magnets in, see,” Peter pulled the lid off and sure enough there were two reasonably sized magnets in there, “they make cool noises if you touch them together in certain ways.” 

Then he pulled out a metal ball with dents in it, “this is my stress ball. The dollar shop ones don’t exactly work well with me so I improvised.” He passed it to Happy and Happy just about dropped it. Clearly it was heavy.

“Here’s a photograph of me with a cow that was printed out when we were testing the new printer May got. I just think it’s neat so it stays in my bag.” Some people had pictures of loved ones they kept near, Peter kept...that.

“Here’s a container of plastic fish I used to play with in the bath as a child. I...don’t actually know why I have these in my bag. But they’re definitely mine. We never threw them out or anything.” Tony thought back to when he thought that Peter might have a normal bag. He was so, so wrong.

“Oh and a small purple rubber duck! Weird. But still mine.”

“Oh my god, that’s my toothbrush! I wonder if I have toothpaste in here.” Peter started fossicking around in his bag like he genuinely expected to- “oh! This is my travel toothpaste. Nice.”

Literally, what the fuck.

Tony stared at Happy, “hey, Hap, if the kid can identify his stuff but can’t say how it got there, is that a hazard?”

Happy sighed, “normally? Yeah, probably. It’d be suspicious. With him? I’m somehow not worried.”

Peter spluttered, “I just have a big bag, okay! It’s hard to keep track of everything.”

“Anyway, here’s my yo-yo-”

“I have literally never seen you use a yo-yo in your life.”

“Well, I can use one. And I do. I can’t do tricks or anything but they’re still fun. Plus you’ve only known me for like a year.”

Tony gestured for him to continue.

“This is my book of sudoku puzzles because I like doing them when I’m bored.” Well, at least it was getting more reasonable.

“And here’s a possum.” Never-fucking-mind.

Both Tony and Happy straightened up and looked at him funny. 

“Not a real one! It’s from New Zealand and has real possum fur. It’s soooo soft. Someone gave it to me as a gift as a kid although I don’t remember who.”

“Alright. Why’s it in your bag?” Tony would love to know.

“Because...it’s soft? And I like touching it?”

“That’s seriously your reason to carry it around with you?”

“Yeah?”

Fine, whatever, he’d heard worse. “Whatever. Keep going. Surely you’re nearly done.” Hopefully he was nearly done, at least.

“Oh, yeah, just a few more things. Here’s a frog I made when I had to do a sewing class, but it’s filled with sand and sometimes spills a bit. I guess I didn’t sew it very well.” It actually resembled a frog so Tony had to give him points for that.

Peter opened a small pocket carefully and pulled out a container, “this is my egg pocket.”

Nope. Tony was done here. He had an egg, in a container, in a pocket, of his _school bag_. Why was he still spending time with him? This made no sense. There was literally zero explanation-

“It’s boiled. I like eating them as a snack and that pocket is the perfect size for my egg container. Just gotta peel off the eggshell.”

Fine. Maybe there was one explanation. But Tony didn’t like it.

“Annnnd finally this pocket is full of those spiky things that fall from trees because I think they’re cool.”

Literally the entire pocket, the small front pocket of the bag, was filled with the spiked seed pods that came off some trees. Deep breath, Tony. At least it was over. It couldn’t get any weirder or worse because it was over. Happy could clear him and they could go work in the lab and never talk about this again. Thank God.

Peter tipped his bag upside down to make sure he’d gotten everything and other than a small pile of sand that fell out (probably from the frog), it was empty. Tony had literally never been happier. 

Then Peter gasped, “oh my god! I forgot the squishy golden rat filled with water that I keep in the pocket inside my jacket!”

Tony walked out.

**Author's Note:**

> me using words I know are either Aus/NZ or British English, not American: figure it out
> 
> apparently fossicking is an NZ/Aus word which is weird. i didn't know that. 
> 
> also me chucking new zealand in there: what? it's not the most implausible thing ever.
> 
> i was looking around my room and thinking back to when i was a kid like what should i give Peter next and i saw the possum so you know. i gave him it. a lot of the stuff in there is stuff I own/have owned sjdfsdf, take that how you will sdfhjsdf. most of the stuff in this story has indeed ended up in my pockets or bag at least once. I'm sure pumice is a lot more implausible in New York compared to me wandering Rotorua or whatever but like,, too bad, this is just meant to be weird anyway


End file.
